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Cortegra, a manufacturer of labels and other packaging products based in Fairfield, NJ, USA, has introduced Braille-embossed cartons and labels to comply with impending European Union legislation. Using special tooling, Cortegra embosses the Braille in an uncontracted Braille system, which means the words are spelled out, instead of in a contracted or chain system, in which one character can represent an entire word.

The EU legislation mandates that secondary drug packaging must have label information in Braille for sight-impaired customers. According to European Directive 2001/ 83/ EC Article 56A, pharmaceutical packaging will be required by law to have product names, formulation and strength displayed in Braille by October 2010.

“The EU requires that drug names be spelled out, so the uncontracted system was our obvious choice,” says Narendra Srivatsa, Cortegra’s director of packaging solutions. “We also had to use highly precise tooling, not only to make sure the characters were correct, but to make sure it was done without damaging the cartons.”

A subsidiary of Menasha Corporation, Cortegra has more than six decades of printing experience for the pharmaceutical industry. Its products include brand authentication technologies, labels, inserts and outserts, folding cartons, booklets and extended content labels.